Have you ever been in that situation where you are scorned upon
and told to your face that you are absurd just because you didn’t believe in
settling for less? Sometimes it is subtly done or said yet open enough for you
to know that that was meant for you.
The people you probably thought
understands your personality and have studied to know who you truly are
probably just tolerating you because of what they stand to gain at the salient
point in time. So they (mark ‘they’
as a close person; maybe family or friend) label you as pompous, proud and
picky. They yinmu at you as ‘that poor
guy’ that thinks too much of himself.
This no doubt is something almost synonymous with the typical African
person in the position of authority. I remember when my nephew was small and
every time I thought he could do something as a rite of passage to his
development into manhood, his mother (my sister) would shut the idea down. This
persisted till he grew into his late teenage years and the boy had to tell his
mom one day saying, ‘Mummy please, I can cross the tiny main road to school and
walk myself to school’. She was ready to keep the boy under her ‘motherly’ care
but in a way was disrupting the developmental human cyanogen that come from personal
experience and learning.
Also, the ‘Bring Them Down’ syndrome can’t be overemphasized. There
is a shortsightedness that restricts and confines one to the unacceptable chaos
of today’s world all in a rat race to pay bills and live in paranoid and ‘pharoanic’
bondage called ‘job’. And when you want to leave that same job, it is either
they (mark they again) remind you
that the risk you are about to take will crush you and spill you into the
dustbin of destitution or deep inside of you fear grips and you scratch your
head thinking and hoping you aren’t mad taking such step.
But if it is a step you must take, then it is a step you must
take. The kind of financial emancipation and human fulfillment that will make
money work for you and not the one that you have to work for money doesn’t come
from salary. And trust me, when I say it doesn’t come from salary, I mean no
matter how fat the salary may be, true financial emancipation doesn’t come from
‘salary’
The creative mind is such that needs freedom. In this part of the
world, we seldom appreciate such people and they are mostly seen as ‘lazy’. That
is why when most of these creative guys finally hit the zenith of their career,
people see them as ‘gods’ and some immature few act as thus. I was at a seminar
during the week and Mr. Ralph Nwadike, the veteran film maker told us how
Cohbams Asuquo, the blind yet dexterously gifted producer slept in his studio
back in the days and how he fed him and gave him cloths to wear. (it was a
completely unnecessary story given the background of his lecture or discourse)
Fast track the story, few months ago he took a million naira to
him to make a sound track and Asuquo charged him 15 million naira. O’blaimeeee… *eyesrolling*. I would have
thought if sincerely he gave him such platform to rise to the pinnacle of his
career, then Asuquo won’t even charge mr. Ralph Nwadike. I know something is
wrong with the gentleman’s story or maybe the quiet and gentle Asuquo has
suddenly gone crazy. You know what they say about the character of a man when
he becomes made?
So people will misunderstand you. I also heard that Iheanacho, the
young Nigerian wonder kid who now plies his footballing trade in Manchester
City, UK was disowned by his father when he blatantly told him he doesn’t want
to continue with school but to face football squarely. Chineke! He got disowned. However,
when the boy became a super star and could pay even the salaries of the bosses
he could have been working with now if he had not pursued his footballing
career, the father was the first to welcome the boy from the international
airport and now has become his son’s agent.
The road to emancipation is very long, hazardous, lonely and stressful.
The person you need to convince before embarking on this journey is YOURSELF. Once
you are certain that your heart will be lost without this path and you are
absolutely sure that at the end of this dark tunnel lies your treasure, gird
your loins, develop a thick skin and expect the worst from the people closest
to you. They are actually doing what they are doing to you the best way they
understand and they are looking out for you in their own way but the truth is; living
life is a risk in itself and the worst risk you can ever take is the fear of
taking one.
So go ahead, make mistakes, fail, try again, fail and try again. Someday,
it will work out for you.
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